Way to screen out non-ASCII characters?

Way to screen out non-ASCII characters?

[Edward Dodge]

Does anyone know if there is a mode or something that you can use in
EMACS to screen out everything that *isn't* ASCII text?  I am
currently trying to get some old documents converted to a plain-old
ASCII text file,  and I don't have access to the original program to
"save as text,"  nor do I want to write a script for this.

I would assume that because EMACS can distinguish between different
character-sets, maybe there is a way for EMACS to strain out the
other garbage for me.  

-- 
Edward Dodge

/GNU Emacs 21.3.50.1 (powerpc-apple-darwin5.5) of 2002-10-11 on G3/

Re: Way to screen out non-ASCII characters?

[roodwriter]

Edward Dodge wrote:

> 
> Does anyone know if there is a mode or something that you can use in
> EMACS to screen out everything that *isn't* ASCII text?  I am
> currently trying to get some old documents converted to a plain-old
> ASCII text file,  and I don't have access to the original program to
> "save as text,"  nor do I want to write a script for this.
> 
> I would assume that because EMACS can distinguish between different
> character-sets, maybe there is a way for EMACS to strain out the
> other garbage for me.
> 

It's not Emacs, but if you're using Linux, you can use the strings command. 
You can launch it from the Emacs shell if you prefer. Read man strings.

If those are old Word files, there's antiword and a few others that will 
take out the text.

--Rod

-- 
Author of "Linux for Non-Geeks--Clear-eyed Answered for Practical Consumers" 
and "Boring Stories from Uncle Rod." Both are available at 
http://www.rodwriterpublishing.com/index.html

To reply by e-mail, take the extra "o" out of the name.

Re: Way to screen out non-ASCII characters?

[Joshua D. Guttman]

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Edward Dodge <someone@g3.com> writes:

> Does anyone know if there is a mode or something that you can use in
> EMACS to screen out everything that *isn't* ASCII text?  I am
> currently trying to get some old documents converted to a plain-old
> ASCII text file,  and I don't have access to the original program to
> "save as text,"  nor do I want to write a script for this.
> 

If the documents are in MS Word format or something like that, then
you can use the undoc program, attached below.  


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-- 
	Joshua D. Guttman		<guttman@mitre.org>
	MITRE, Mail Stop S119		Office:	+1 781 271 2654
	202 Burlington Rd.		Fax:	+1 781 271 8953
	Bedford, MA 01730-1420 USA	Cell:	+1 781 526 5713

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Re: Way to screen out non-ASCII characters?

[Kai Großjohann]

Edward Dodge <someone@g3.com> writes:

> Does anyone know if there is a mode or something that you can use in
> EMACS to screen out everything that *isn't* ASCII text?  I am
> currently trying to get some old documents converted to a plain-old
> ASCII text file,  and I don't have access to the original program to
> "save as text,"  nor do I want to write a script for this.

I guess that MacOS X has the "strings" command.

strings -a old-document.doc > plain-old.txt
-- 
Two cafe au lait please, but without milk.